Michael's Decision
by Where'n'why
Summary: (COMPLETED July 26, 2015) Michael has had a fight with his wife. Now, as he has many times before, he's thinking about divorce. What's different this time is that he doesn't have Dr. Friedlander to talk to. He goes to the only people he can his partners in crime. (Completely unrelated to Big Quake).
1. Franklin

I really, really don't know how it happened. All I know is when _it_ happened. It was a month to the day after the UD job and I though that we were smooth sailing after that. If I tried to say why, exactly, I'd be spouting some conjecture. It had been a process that had festered over the years. I lied, she lied. I cheated once; she cheated about ten thousand times. But, she was an ingrate. I always made sure there was money in the bank. There was always bread and milk in the house and the kids always had some decent clothes, not rags and the remains of burlap sacks sown together.

We had argued about something. I don't remember what the damn thing was, shit, don't ask me about it. I don't even remember driving over to Frank's. I must have driven fast because only ten tense minutes had elapsed during the drive between my house and his on the hill, Whispymound Drive to be precise.

* * *

"One day, I guess _to_ day, it all just fucking snapped, you know. I always loved my wife, but she really knew, and she still knows, how to fuck me up. Well, I suppose for what we started as, we did good. I started as a hustler, a pimp, a dealer, an all around fucked up lowlife. I ain't proud of it. Never was, but now out of all the bullshit I've put up with… I… I," I stammered, I didn't know quite how to say it. I'd never been at such a loss as what to say in my life. Now here I was on Franklin's pretty comfortable couch not really knowing what to say or do. This kind of existence was shit. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy, Well, enemies.

"Michael," he said getting up to get another beer from the fridge, managing to keep eye contact at the same time, "I know that it ain't pleasant, but if you think that this is it with your wife, then that's it. Case closed. If you're confident that you tried everything you could to save this, and you can walk out feeling like you tried that means that it's over," he said as he reached his head into the fridge to grab a Pißwasser.

"Since when did you become a therapist, kid?" I asked.

"Don't you say every one in this town is a psychologist?" He was smiling trying to make me feel better. I appreciated it. This kid, Frank, was more of a son to me than my own son. I'm not saying that I don't love Jimmy, but Franklin is closer to what I want Jimmy to be. I hate that thought. I hate myself for thinking it. I'd think it nonetheless.

"Your right, but I don't know if I'm really ready to throw the towel in. You know?"

"I don't," he mumbled thinking I wouldn't hear. I did; I ignored it.

"Sometimes I feel like I can just walk out. Walk away," I was being honest, "But at other times, like right now, I feel like I can't just take that step. I still love her." I was frustrated. It don't feel good to be on a pendulum of emotions like this. I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy. Not Madrazo, not Haines (now dead), no one. And before you say anything, I know I already said that. F responded rationally.

"Michael, it depends on how you love her. I mean do you love her the same way you did on the day you married her? Do you love her cuz she the mother of your kids? Do you love her like a friend that you've been through some shit through?" He said this as he handed me the beer.

"I love her like… like… like," I couldn't answer. I love my wife like… Shit I couldn't finish that sentence maybe if I verbalized it again it would come. "I love my wife like. Shit, do I love my wife?"

"Man I don't know. But if you struggling with a question like that I don't know what you gonna do to salvage your marriage. Do you even like her?" That's another thing I liked about Franklin, his head was always level. He weighed the options good, bad, ugly, indifferent, and came up with a logical result in a split second. That was an asset that I figured I would need more of.

"I don't hate her."

"But you don't love her?" though it rang in my ears more like a statement of facts, a declarative sentence.

"No." I said as a tentative response, without thinking, but stuck with the answer.

"Do you like her, as a person, I mean?"

"Yeah, but I think I fell out of love with her years ago," Those words, though foreign, summed it up correctly.

"Then what's stopping you from just divorcing her?"

"I don't know."

"Is it the money?" he inquired, sensible as usual.

"No, I don't care about the money." I said taking a gulp from the beer. That was a half truth. She could take half of it and I'd still have enough to do anything I damn well pleased.

"Then what the fuck is stopping you."

"I guess it's the kids."

"Why would Jim and Trace stop you from doing this?"

"I don't know." I couldn't conjure up a reason.

"Yes you do."

"I want my children to have a stable home," I blurted out. I knew as soon as I said it, that it was a stupid answer.

"Stable home, stable home! Your kids are in their twenties they're moving out and starting their own lives."

"You're right," I conceded. He was right.

"I know I am," Franklin said smugly. "I think that you just like to torture yourself."

"I'm not a masochist," I started, feeling a little defensive, "I don't like making my life any harder than it needs to be."

"Michael De Santa, that is a fucking lie and you fucking know it," he started.

"Jesus Christ, I-"

"No, I'm gonna say this," he looked at me squarely almost meanly, but more like a stern principal chiding a second or third grader. "There were many, _many_ opportunities to avoid trouble, to avoid pain, just in the time I've known you. You could have let me just _repossess_ that damn car, but you didn't. You didn't have to pull that Mexican's house off of that goddamn hill, but you did it. The second Trevor walked into your house, you could have ended him, there and then, but you didn't"

I felt my palms getting sweaty as he laid out the facts and evidence just like the prosecutor did back in North Yankton. Maybe in another life Franklin was a lawyer. I sank lower into his couch as he went on, listing the incontinent facts in to me and to an imaginary jury.

"You could have just robbed the jewelry store and end it. You could have avoided being kidnapped by those Chinese guys and just let Trevor discover that for himself. You, we could have left the Union Depository alone, didn't have to touch that bitch, but we didn't. We went in there and took 'em for everything they got. Then _you_ , me, we take out all the assholes who double crossed us. All that being said, Michael, the _last_ thing you can say is that you try to make your life any easier or less painful!"

"Well is getting a divorce going to make my life any easier?"

"Shit, I don't know, but will getting a divorce make your life any harder?" He posed the question. I thought that I'd found an answer.

"No, I guess not."

"You guess not, you _guess_ not. Michael this is fact. I ask you if you love your wife. You say 'no'. I ask you if you like your wife, and I get some punk ass 'yes'."

"This whole thing is insane."

"Then do what you think is best for your sanity."

"What," I started shouting, my blood starting to boil, "the fuck is sanity?"

"Shit, man, I don't know, but this sure as shit ain't it. If you were sane you wouldn't be here crying your eyes out," he exaggerated yelling, but I realized that I must have been grating his nerves with this discussion. I didn't care.

"Maybe, I'm not sane!" I said, more like shouted.

"No you ain't, and I ain't sane for listening to your miserable old ass." He voice had mellowed for that stament. I, in turn, had to also calm down.

"I know that this ain't fun to talk about, and I'm sorry hat I'm bringing all of this depressing shit into your house."

"It's alright. I know that divorce is a big step and I don't know if you're ready for it. You might be, you might not be."

"Thanks kid," I said finishing the last of that beer.

"You're welcome."


	2. Trevor

I was always one for being advised and informed. Before and during every major move, good or bad or indifferent, I made in life, I got advice. It may have been well thought out or given hastily, but it was advice indeed. Now that I had calmed down to some tangible degree, I sought advice. I know, I know that what Franklin was giving me was advice, but it didn't quite click. I suppose it was the anger, of having just had that fight with her, still being fresh and foremost in my mind. The thoughts of what each of us said when we were angry were still on fire when I talked to Franklin. Now that the fire had burnt itself out, I was left with haunting thoughts, and those were more like smoldering embers, or hot coals under my feet. Those thoughts were bad enough but, I don't know why the thought of talking to Trevor came into my head. It's an even bigger wonder that the thought of even discussing anything so personal with the maniac turned into action. There I was sitting in a seedy bar not too far from the Alamo Sea drinking, sipping really, on something dark brown, waiting for him to walk through, run through or kick down that rusty metal door. He always had to make some big entrance into my life. I was hoping that this would be the exception to the rule. It wasn't.

"Pants down. Dick out!" That is what I heard the Canadian voice scream from the door, which was thankfully left intact, to a degree, as Trevor walked into the Yellow Jack Inn. He approached me as I turned around to look him in the eye. The bar had not become silent, from the outburst. He must have been a regular, or he must have regularly popped in just to say or scream it.

"Jesus, Trevor, do you always have to say something gross to get my attention?" I asked mortified.

"Sugartits, I'll always make a scene when I need to. It's in my DNA. It's in yours too; you just refuse to acknowledge it. I don't know why you could be a whole lot more if you did." This was the second such time he had defined me, the last time being right before he put it together about Brad.

"Well, that's not what I'm here for," I said trying my best to transition the conversation. He, at least, did not hamper that effort.

"Then why the fuck did you call me here? I have better shit to do that to talk with you all night."

"Fine, it's about Amanda." By the look on his face, I could tell that he didn't want to talk about this.

"Mikey, I though that I made it quite clear that I don't give a shit."

"Well I'm thinking about divorcing her," I blurted out. That brown liquor was starting to mess with my inhibitions. I, normally, would have never said anything like that so abruptly.

"This is only the hundredth t-"

"I fucking mean it this time. Me and her ass is done. Got that prick," I put my finger in his face, "Done."

"Alright looks like someone, got started without me." He was ready to get wasted. "Janet." The lady bartender came to Trevor, "Get me a glass of whatever my friend's drinking."

"You're still banned Trevor."

"Look, I saved your husband." I had no clue what the hell they were talking about. I can't tell you that I care either.

"I haven't seen him in weeks," she screamed, though not as upset as I would have thought.

"Well, I ain't had nothing to do with it, now pour me a goddamn drink," he said with that pseudo-soothing, faux-calm voice he used when telling an outright lie.

"Fine, but if I find out that it's the opposite, I will not serve you."

"Anyway, Sugartits, what's so special this time?" He asked as his first drink was placed in front of him.

"I think that I can move on and divorce her ass without turning around and feeling guilty about it."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, if you really thought that you'd be in able to just leave her, you'd have done it by now." He swallowed his drink in one gulp and motioned for another.

"What?" I did need him to elaborate.

"I," he started as he received his second drink, "think that you're fucking lying to yourself. Have been since Brad died. Or maybe since Mandy pushed out those two kids, one of whom, the girl, looks just like Brad Snider."

"Wh-" What the fuck was he talking about in that last sentence.

"I would never use the word 'indecisive'," he moved on, "to describe you Michael. But now you want to pussyfoot around like a little bitch!" He downed his second drink and I finished the one I was sipping.

"Hey, you don't have to be so harsh," I said. "Why am I even asking you about any of this stuff?"

"Harsh, Michael, I think the fake tits and… everything down in L.S. has caused some major brain damage, changed your personality. You didn't use to take any shit from anyone. Now you didn't just mellow out, Michael Townley died. The Townley I knew who did _not_ take bullshit from anyone, not the law, not his wife, no one is gone. Townley fucking died, and De Santa the man who replaced him, De Santa's a fucking bitch. Where the fuck did Townley go." His second drink was gone.

"No, you don't fucking tell me who's the bitch." I was slurring my words, but I didn't give a shit. "You're a little fucking bitch, Trevor. You are the one who brings up shit from ten years ago. Fucking grow a spine and stop giving grief like some bitch I didn't call."

"I _am_ some bitch you didn't call!"

I could even tell through my grayish haze of drunkenness, or as I like to put it 'evident dearth of sobriety' that the bar got silent. It was the awkward kind of silence in which no one could subsist. The silence itself could not subsist. Someone would have to break it. The creator of the quiet was the destroyer. "What the fuck is so interesting?!" He got up quickly, immediately from his stool and walked into the middle of the empty space that was this tavern. "Huh, tell me," he said walking, almost jogging back to the stools grabbing some redneck, by the worn and frayed collar of his heavily oil-soaked navy blue coveralls, or grown-up onesies.

"I don't know, Tr… Trevor," the dirty blond haired mechanic with the mullet said, trembling violently.

"I didn't fucking think that you did Joe," he said releasing the now beet red man, and retaking his seat.

"Trevor, you didn't have to-"

"Yes I did. I made a decision. That means that I have a pair of hair balls. Why can't you do the same thing? It's easy to decide something like this Townley. There's no need to talk to me. Just divorce her if that's what you want to do."

"I don't know what I want to do."

"Then fuckin' flip a damn coin."

* * *

Thank you C.J for your reviews. I'm glad that your on the edge of your seat. Just don't fall off, because I won't be liable for your injury (jk lol). Anyway, to answer your question "He Missed" will have multiple chapters, the second chapter is still in the works (about 40%-ish done), but I've been sorta sluggish with it lately, and for that I apologize. If you have any ideas they are most certainly appreciated and will receive credit at the beginning and end of the chapter. You weren't completely wrong calling "The Big Quake", the Big One, as it was... for me anyway a big deal. It was exciting to write, trust me. Finally, in regards to using dialogue, I simply have to agree. GTA V is a gold mine of ideas, and while I have no problem with people going in their own direction(s), (I'm sure you don't either), but I think that rich stories can be gleaned from what characters have said.

-Wherenwhy


	3. Jimmy

"James Townley, how many times do I have to tell you that you shouldn't be getting plastered like this?" I hated it when my son would call at all times of the night for me to pick him up from one of his benders, "You are twenty years old. You're not old enough to fucking drink". My annoyance was compounded by the fact that where I was driving him was severely out of my way. The house that I once shared with Amanda was no longer my home. I was staying in a hotel that was clear on the other side by Vespucci Beach. Now I was opening the car door for my sot of a son.

"Don't you fucking tell me what to fucking do." His words were slurred with insobriety.

"Son, you've really got to stop drinking like this. You'll kill yourself if you keep binging like this." I was severely disappointed, but not surprised. Both of my kids were destroying my hope for millennials.

"I'm not your son, I'm a De Santa. You hear me, a DE fucking Santa Claus, bitch!"

"Jimmy, what would your mother say about this? You can't make all of this noise when I get you home."

"Like you care, Michael," he said, his voice becoming incredibly more lucid, crisp even. It was as if his brain stopped focusing on his drunkenness and focused on the conversation at hand.

"What makes you say that, Jimmy? I do care that your about to march into my house drunk as skunk. I do care that you'll probably disturb Amanda. What makes you think that I don't care about your mother?"

"It's pretty damn obvious that you two are about to end it." The garbling returned with a vengeance.

"Why would you say that?"

"The way you two fight is ridiculous. It's like you two don't want to be married anymore. At least not to each other."

"Come on, son. What do you do, eavesdrop? What have either of us said to make you think-" He cut me off.

"I might be drunk right now, but I ain't stupid. You have both used the word 'divorce' in your arguments. And for the record Michael, I don't have to eavesdrop. You two are so damn loud that when you fucking argue the walls rattle." He barely managed to say without stammering.

"We never argued in front of you." At least we promised we never would.

"You had all of your arguments within earshot! Were you always this oblivious to what goes on around you? I mean, why do you think I don't have a job now? It's all your fault, Dad, all your fault. I just want you to think about it. We have nothing in our house," he said, his words still heavy with inebriation.

"What the fuck are you talking about?" I was livid. If only he knew what nothing meant. I grew up in a trailer where the refrigerator was always empty, with the exception of beer. This drunken little shit had no idea what 'nothing' was or what it looked like.

"My computer is so 2012 and the entertainment system is like two years old now. I don't have a car and my game system is going to be obsolete soon."

"What the fuck is wrong with you kid. You have a good fucking life. And you don't have a car because you don't have a goddamn license."

"No my life is shit dad. With you and mom about to call it quits, my life is going to be even shittier. Like a shitstorm of shit. You know what I mean."

"I have no fucking clue." I didn't; the alcohol was fucking up his brain. What the hell was he talking about?

"The one thing in my life that was constant was you two being together. Even when we moved from Yankton, your shitty relationship with Mom was something that I knew was going to be the same. I had to leave all of my friends behind and come to a strange city 1,500 miles away from where I lived. I had to learn a new name. I had to make new friends, and that was hard."

"I didn't know that our marriage meant that much to you." I thought Jimmy might do this. He always bottled his emotions up, and they always spilt out onto the ground sloppily. In that way he was a lot like his old man.

"It did. It was something that made me feel good. Even in the middle of the night when you two argued as loudly as you could, I used to say that the two of you would be like this as long as you lived. Angry and yelling at each other, but with one another." That part of his brain that dictated his inhibitions was completely checked out for the evening. He never would have told me about any of this when he was sober.

"Is there anything else you'd like to tell me?" I asked, jokingly.

"Just that when you hear me watching porn-"

"Jimmy, I really don't want to or need to know about-"

"No, you do. I play the lesbians on the big TV and turn the volume up, while I watch my gay shit on the computer with my headphones plugged in." He made a weird smile that I recognized. It was the smile he always made when he was pulling a prank on someone. I hadn't seen that smile since we were back in Yankton, when he used to pull all kinds of gags on his friends.

"What the fuck?" Seroiusly, was he fucking kidding me.

"Yup, since we're being honest and shit," he said before passing out.

I had not planned on hearing any shit like that. Then again, he could have been pulling my fucking leg. I didn't like the things I was hearing from people. First, Trevor says that Tracey might not be my daughter. Now, Jim is making jokes or dropping hints, or coming out as a gay. I mean if he said that he was I wouldn't really care. I've worked with them in the past and their just as good as a straight guy. I mean Packie was a good worker and all. It's a shame that the family name would die. The fuck am I talking about? It was already dead. Townley died in N. Yankton like Trevor said. Now I had two fucking things to investigate, both had to do with my kids. My daughter might not be my daughter and my son might like guys. "Well, fuck, that's my life," I said as I pulled up the driveway to my house. "Come on," I urged as I tugged his body. I knew that he would not talk so I got out of the car and walked around the front and opened the passenger side door and grabbed my son's shirt. He sat up, and got out of the car without falling onto the ground. I opened the door and got him to the stairs.

A strange sound, a hybrid between a grunt and a pained moan was all that came from my son.

"Come on now, up the stairs," I said, still holding him by the shirt, as I led him up the stairs and towards his room. Once on the second level I guided him into his room. I stifled the urge to go immediately to his computer and look at his internet history. I laid him out on the bed and left the room. When I came out, Amanda was standing just outside of the bedroom that we used to share. We made eye-contact, harsh, critical, eye-contact. I said nothing as I walked down the stairs and back to my car. It was going to be another lonely night in the hotel for me.


	4. Tracey

"What makes you want to do a genealogy search, dad?" Her eyes were wide with curiosity. Somehow I had lured Tracey to-. Well let me not say lure. I don't lure anyone… anymore. I convinced her to meet me at the pier on that way too hot day, Daddy-Daughter Time's what I liked to call it. Too bad that I found out that Daughter might not have been Daddy's.

"Just wanted to make some quick money." I lied quickly. I knew that I could've cone up with something better, but there was no need. She knew that I had money, but she didn't know how much. I continued, "I was down at the mall and they were gathering a bunch of random people to do some documentary or some shit and they wanted me to get another person to take the test. I thought that since you probably the closest to where I was, I'd choose you."

"Okay," she said before opening her mouth wide with more speed and ease than I would like to admit. Where she had learned to gape like that, I think that I wouldn't llike to know.

"Okay," I said grabbing the swab out of the bag. I felt my hands trembling and stopped. "How 'bout you swab your own cheek?" I asked.

"Fine," she said grabbing the stick and brushing it on the inside of her cheek. She gave it back to me and I put it back into the bag. I gave her a wordless nod of thanks and she responded with the worst question imaginable. "So how much are you going to give me for this? How much are they paying you?"

"500." I came up with a quick answer.

"Then, I want 250," she said outstretching her hand. Well she was always good at math.

"Fine," I said reaching into my wallet and giving her the three bills that added up to two hundred fifty. She almost immediately turned her back to and started to walk away.

"You're no even going to say thank you?!" I knew for a fact that I raised both my children better than that, or at least I tried. I thought for damn sure that I'd at least taught them to say 'please' and 'thank you', shit.

"Why? That's your job." Her back was still turned as she said it, with only her blond ponytail swaying with the wind and her gait. I don't know exactly what angered me more in her last statement. Was it the fact that she said, declared those words as plainly and nonchalantly as someone would talk about a trip to the supermarket or to the bank, or was it that somehow, somewhere I failed to teach them the value of a dollar? Was it the fact that she couldn't even look me in the eye when she spoke?

"No, it is not, Tracey," I said, yelled more like, closing the gap that she made while walking back towards her car that I bought. Somehow, my hand got hooked into the bend of her arm. I became severely aware of the people around us becoming silent. That awareness, however, didn't make me self-conscious, 'cause I ignored it.

"Yes, it is. It has always been your job," she said turning her body back towards me, "You always made it your job. What's stopping you now, Daddy?"

"We spoilt you." Those words were certainly no revelation, but they rang in my ears like breaking news. "We spoilt you rotten and now you don't know that it's time for you to make your own life. You don't _know how_ to make your own life."

"Make my own life?!" She boomed in that low voice she gets when she's angry. "My life was interrupted to may time thanks to you, Dad. Fame or Shame, ruined. My party on that boat, ruined. You have don e nothing but ruin my life and now you want to do it again."

"What the fuck are you-" I wanted to remind her that she got back on to Fame or Shame, despite her being a shit singer and a shittier dancer. She forgot that that party on the boat had some serious drug people and porn stars on it. She must've forgotten being shot at by her 'friends'.

She cut me off before I could speak, "You don't think I know remember?! A few months ago when we moved out, I asked you not to get a divorce and now it looks like your about to do just that."

"Look, you don't need to concern yourself with this."

"Yes, I do."

"I said this back then, and I'm sayin' it now. Mind your own goddamn business," I exploded feeling like there were about a million pairs of eyes watching me. There were only about thirty or so pairs of eyes who were staring, "All of you mind your business too," I shouted again. Most of them scurried away.

"You're my parents, you are my goddamn business. Do you know that last night Jimmy came into my room last night crying, telling me that's you two are probably gonna end it, and crying about some other nonsense about you being disappointed in him and computers or some shit."

"Your brother was wasted and your mother and me getting a divorce or not has nothing to do with either of you. We just have things to talk about."

"Well talk already, all of this screaming shit gets in the way of me studying."

"That's why I moved out," said I.

"Whatever," she said quickly, tersely before walking away again.

This time I let her. I had what I came for, a DNA sample. I was going to send it to the lab, when I got home, or rather to the hotel where I was staying. It would take about two weeks for me to get it back. In the meanwhile, I was going to see if Jimmy was fucking with me when he said that in the car or if he was telling me something important. Whatever it was, it'd have to wait. Dammit, I hated waiting.


	5. Lester

"So you came to my house to talk to me about what, Michael?"

"It's Amanda. She's… she's… Lester, I don't know why I'm here actually." I was sitting on his bed with the same checkered sheets as last time. I wondered if he constantly washed them or if he had more than one set for they were always clean and crisp.

"Then why are you wasting my time? I have day trading to attend to." He rolled his wheelchair back to one of the three screens he connected to the computer. All three of them were on. The first one, the one on the left, labeled 'A', showed a ticker that was a mad display of green and red. The second was a graph of the BAWSAQ. Monitor 'C' showed one particular stock that I didn't take the time to read.

"I am not wasting your time. Things are all serious in my house." I couldn't think of a way to say that more intelligently. Fuck, not it like I give a shit.

"What? You mean like how you're not even living in that house anymore?" His eyes did not leave the stock market on the screen.

"And how the fuck did you know that?" The question came out of my mouth with, not rage, but its opposite, laughter. Trust me; I wasn't angry about how he could have known. This whole town figured shit out before the people involved knew what the hell was going on.

"I know everything, Michael." That was a matter of fact. "And now, you're here to pick my brain about what to do?"

"Well, if you know anything, oh magical and perceptive being" I could fell the derision creeping into and overwhelming my speech, "What the fuck should I do about my cheating wife, my daughter who may not be mine biologically, and my son who's always drunk to escape whatever the matter's with him? What should I do you wise sage?"

"Well, when you put it like that, shit gets hard for me decipher." He took no interest, more like, actively ignored my sarcasm. He still had not turned around from that damned computer. It was pissing me off a little bit, but I decided to ignore it.

"Well last thing first, what do I do with Jimmy?"

"He can go to meetings, Michael." His answer was quick, almost a little too quick. He, at least turned his chair around with him. He spoke again, chuckling, "Perhaps you can go with him."

"Fuck you." I said, trying stifling a laugh with little effectiveness.

"Well, I'm pretty sure you got the kit and did your own test."

"You would be right about that."

"With Amanda, I don't know what to say… uh… Do you love her? I guess… would be the first question." He stammered, and that was unfamiliar. This, apparently, was on place where Lester Crest was not an expert.

"Franklin already took me through that."

"Well then… oh… I've got it. One of the reason's you thinking about ending it is infidelity."

"Not making me feel better, man."

"Just fucking listen," He snapped the same way he did when anyone interrupted his train of thought, "Make a list of all the people you cheated with and all the people she's cheated with."

"How's this supposed to help me?" Seriously, how was it?

"I know that you like facts," he said as he reached to the shelf next to the computer, grabbing some, maybe five or six sheets, of the yellowing lined paper and a pencil. "I figured that if I let you outline the facts of this situation, you'll see what you want. So first I want you to make a chart. On the left, I want you to honestly write down all of the women you've cheated with. On the right I want you to write who Amanda's been with that you know of."

"Fine." I started writing. It took a few minutes, but goddamn it, it felt like school again. I was the apt pupil and Lester was the attentive teacher.

"Alright," he said sitting up in her chair, "Let's hear it."

"Well for me, one stripper."

"Alright, and for Amanda." His head was cocked to the left, as if he was trying to suppress a grimace.

"Amanda has cheated with, Fabien, her tennis coach that I paid $150 an hour, Jimmy's third grade teacher, that hippie Jesus wannabe at the pier, a guy called Cletus id Blaine County, the mailman, a pizza delivery boy, Jock Cranley, the cable car operator at Mount Chiliad, an Epsilonist, my barber, a tattoo artist, another Epsilonist."

"Michael, I get it." He rolled his eyes. "Now I would say to make a list for all of the reasons that you love her."

"This shit is too sappy." I said, writing.

"This is what happens when you come to me. You know that I don't have a clue about any of this."

"You don't have a clue?! You don't have a clue?! I come here to a man whose IQ is somewhere in the high 200's and you don't have a fucking clue. This _is_ shit." Fuck this, I mean, of all people Lester should have been the more logical, most logical and methodical person in the bunch.

"No, I don't this is your problem and you don't have to come here and yell at me about having a shitty life! You can make decisions on how to rob jewelry store and super-banks and now your life is simple all you have to do is decide if you want a divorce or if you want to work it out. You know what, let me tell you something. When you have a disease that is literally eating your body from the inside out, you know what a shitty life is, and yours isn't it. Michael Townley!"

"Well, fuck, it' like no one wants to help-"

"I am sick of the damn pity. Stop pitying yourself. I don't know what happened, but the 'woe is me' has got to stop. You're a handsome white billionaire in his forties," The handsome part was a bit off-putting. I suffered him to continue, while suppressing the urge to punch him in his wheelchair, "and if and when you get a divorce I can fix your bank account to only look like you have a couple of million, and make that alimony more fair in light of her… infidelities. But you're about to say that you can't do it. Why?" Lester asked.

"I wrote it down before you started harping on me about how lucky I am." It seemed that without any conscious effort my voice had calmed down. I handed him the (now ruffled) sheet. The two words I'd scribbled in red ink were now a mirrored image in my face as he brought the paper up to his face.

"The kids," he said loud enough to tell me that he had not meant to say it aloud. "The kids?" His tone was mellow.

"Yes, the kids. I don't know how they'll take it. Tracey would probably never forgive me and Jimmy would just binge drink until he was in no pain."

"Hey," he said his tone softening, "You've got to give your kids more credit than that. They handled a 1,500 mile move to San Andreas, and then to the worst city in it, in the country, Los Santos."

"I guess. Look, I'm sorry for yelling at you. I guess I fell like a living, breathing piece of crap. I mean this is the first time in my life where I felt like I was in limbo, like a purgatory on Earth. It's like I'm trapped between a rock and a hard place. I know that I came to you for advice but I got a piece of advice for you."

"And what's that?" he asked turning his wheelchair back to the stock market.

"Don't ever fall in love. Don't ever get married," I said.

"That's two," he said

"And something else." I had just remembered something

"Yeah," he said distantly, now watching whatever he was trading.

"How do you hack into a computer?"


	6. The Bellboy

There was a gentle rapping at the door. That large piece of wood that kept there from being a hole in the wall was very ornate from my side of it. It was painted with a pasty cream color that I'm sure they don't manufacture anymore. The edges of the door were textured with plaster to make little vines of English Ivy that were painted green. The paint must have faded since it was painted, as the green looked to be yellowing a little bit. The outside was nowhere near as nice. It only appeared to be an ordinary door made of oak with my room number, 414, on the wall beside it, to the left.

I rose out of the bed in which I was reclining, over the soft white sheets and comforter. It was one of those memory foam things, so it was a little hard to force myself up. I was awake, but thinking about, well, nothing, staring blankly at the syndicated television show with the psychiatrist. It was maybe ten past one in the afternoon, and the guest who sought the doctor's help was already in tears at the dysfunction of her family, of her marriage. I was trying my hardest to not care as I walked to the door in bare feet. The clean cream colored carpet was cold and crisp beneath my soles. My toes only dug in to it pleasantly, slightly. It wasn't shag, but it wasn't one of those commercial carpets that most hotels had. I guess I can say that with some certainty, as I had probably stayed in all sorts of places. That was one thing that was almost always the same. But I digress.

I must have been walking too slowly for the knocker's pleasing, as the beckoning from the outside became more fervent. "I'm coming, I'm coming." I yelled loud enough for the guy to hear. He stopped knocking, realizing by the changing volume of my voice that I was approaching the threshold. I reached the door and opened it.

"A letter for Mr. De Santa," the deliverer said. He was dressed like any bellboy in a fancy hotel, red blazer and all. His golden name tag only had his last name Parker.

"Thank you, I've been waiting for this," I said to him, grabbing the envelope out of his hand, about to shut the door.

"No tip?!" He demanded angrily.

"Oh," I said retreating into the room a little to get my wallet. When I came back out, leather wallet in hand I said, "Put a dry, fluffy towel in the tumble dryer to speed up your drying times, prick." I shut, more like, slammed the door. I didn't have time to entertain the ass. "Fucking millennial," I mutter to myself, before looking down at the envelope in my trembling hands.

The envelope itself was very plain. The top left of the envelope was labeled, as it should have been, with the name of the lab printed in plain text. It had my name and the hotel's name and my room in the center. I put it up to the light to see if one could read through it. One could, because that envelope was one of those security lines printed on the inside.

I looked around for a letter opener. I couldn't find anything that was intended for the purpose to open it so I looked for something that I could improvise with. A plastic butter knife would do. I grabbed it and stuck the flimsy white knife into the top of the paper enclosure. I ripped the paper sloppily and tossed the envelope aside.

I read the paper and I looked for the most important line. I was Subject A. Tracey was Subject B and Amanda was Subject C. I was so glad that I could get Amanda's DNA so easily. All I had to do was go to my house and get one of her brushes. I knew it was her brush because of the "Fuck Michael," carved so skillfully into the wooden handle. As I scanned for the most pertinent line, my mind was racing. If this was the wrong news I didn't know what the fuck I would do. I would kill someone. I found the line that I was looking for. "Subject C shares a large amount of genetic information (including an X chromosome) with Subject B, therefore Subjects B and C are close (1st degree) relatives. Subject A is male and would have to have contributed an X chromosome to B. Neither of the two X chromosomes match Subject A. Subject A therefore cannot* be the father of Subject B. *This by the test is 99.996% accurate and was performed three times to ensure precision."

There were more words, but the letters only looked like blotches of ink to my reeling mind. I was livid and now I had a call to make. I glanced at the bedside table, and seeing my phone, I walked angrily to it and grabbed the phone. It had been changing when I yanked it off the cord, but I didn't give a shit. I went to my speed dial and called one of the five people on the list.

"Hello," a Canadian asked. He usually started with, 'Hey, Sugartits'.

"Why the fuck didn't you tell me you noticed this earlier?" I must have been even louder than I thought I was, because one the guests in the neighboring room banged on the wall and said something about jetlag with an Australian accent. I didn't care about the words that were muffled by the wall. I did care about the man who said them.

Fuck him.

"Mikey, I like this tone you got going here. Reminds me of the old you, but I don't know what you're talking about, Sugartits." His voice was, for the second time since all of this started, in that pseudo-soothing tone that only rang in my ears like a wicked cat purring or a slithering serpent.

"You know what I'm talking about. Tracey not being my daughter, asshole."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What are you talking about? That was just talk. I don't think that she could have really-"

"Well, Trevor she did. I took a DNA test and that is not my daughter."

"Shit, Mikey, I don't know what to say." Now he came off as sincere.

"I don't either," I hung up on him. What was I thinking calling him? I needed someone with a level head to talk to. I didn't need a methed out psychopath giving me any advice about something he could never, ever, achieve. So, I, being of less than sound judgment decided to call Franklin, before I marched over to my old house and…

"Franklin," I said after I got him on the line.

"Yeah, what's up?"

"It's… Trace ain't my daughter."

"Shit, man. How can you be sure?" His logic gears were turning, furiously.

"I had a DNA test done, and there ain't no way we can be related."

"I don't know what to say. I… Just talk to her." Franklin said,

"If I do I don't think that it'll just be talk. It'll be action. I don't know if I can trust myself alone in the room with her." I really didn't know if I could.

"Fine, tomorrow, noon, at _my_ house. You two are going to sit at the ends of my couch and I'm going to sit in the middle. We're going to talk and hash this out." His voice reverberated with resoluteness even over the sound of the telephone. I knew I couldn't fight him on this. He had that same tone he had when he saved me from those Chinese mobsters after Trevor's stunt.

"Might as well just invite Jimmy and Tracey too," I muttered. I wasn't too thrilled with the idea, in fact, I was severely disgusted by the prospect of sitting in a room with my slut of a wife.

"Do you know what? You're right. You call Tracey. I'll call Jimmy and Amanda and we can see what your family's gonna look like next month." I knew that that was a comment about how dysfunctional and unstable our family was. In a way, he was completely right. Way before he met me, it was incredible the amount of times I was in or out of the house, or trailer or hotel room.

"Fine," I said. I'd give it a try

"Fine." He said, again having control over my life. He would handle it. He hung up first.

That was not going to be fun. Not at all.

* * *

Sadly, there are only a few chapters left in the story. Something new is in the works, so keep your eyes peeled.


	7. The Meeting

The room was cool. Franklin always kept his house, his living room cool. I guess that's a good thing because I knew this meeting was going to get hot and very excited. I did as instructed and called Tracey. At least, this time I didn't have to bribe her to show up. I just called her and she agreed. I couldn't tell you how awkward it was when she tried to give me a hug. I permitted her, of course, and she didn't seem to realize how stiff I was in the embrace. I suppose that it was good tat she didn't. I didn't want to break her heart. It was painful enough for me to hear, but this would mean that her whole life was a lie.

It was also pretty uncomfortable just sitting in the room just the three of us. Franklin was sitting just in the middle of the sectional, in the bend of the 'L' so to speak, as he said he would. I was sitting on the end that was closest to the window. It was close to noon so the sun wasn't shining into the house, just beating straight down from its apex. Trace was sitting on the other side of the couch nearer to Franklin than I. She was making those stupid googly eyes that she made whenever she saw a boy that she liked. He looked, on the surface, aloof, but I really think that he was trying his best to ignore it because of my presence. I wouldn't have been upset if they got together. He would probably be the best guy for her. But, I'm getting way, way ahead of myself.

I allowed my eyes to drift down to my wrist. It was exactly ten to noon and I was getting antsy. I felt like asking if he called them, but I knew that would just annoy him. I already asked him, twice, and the answer didn't change in the five minutes between questions. They were coming, and they were coming together, or, to be clearer, they would arrive at the same time and by the same means.

I looked back out of the window and spent some slow-moving time looking mindlessly, lethargically at the skyline. It made no sense that I was in this city sitting in this house about to open a can of worms. It made no sense that I would be working on a marriage that has cause very little joy in proportion to the stress. I really wanted a beer, a bourbon, or some vodka, but Franklin denied it saying that it'd be wise for me to stay sober. He was right, but a buzz to ignore the tension would have been nice. He even knew me so well, that he hid all of his booze somewhere, probably off of the premises. I admit, if I had anything to drink, I most likely would _not_ be able to stop. Furthermore to that, I would probably say some shit I didn't mean. I needed to be lucid because I certainly wouldn't be calm.

You know, I guess, when you have a profession like mine, life seems to move at double the speed so you need something _any_ thing outside of yourself to be constant. I thought that Amanda was that thing.

Apparently, it was fleeting.

With that thought, Franklin's doorbell rang and the host got up from his seat to answer the door. He walked across the room, exhaling deeply, anticipating the amount of shit through which he was going to be force to wade. He opened the door with an inhale. The tone of her voice resounded through the hollow rooms of the house. I say her voice, but now, to me, it sounded more like the din a wounded animal screeching mixed with the noise created by long fingernails moving down a blackboard. She hugged Franklin flirtatiously, making eye contact with me through the dark sunglasses. He hardly reciprocated the hug and his back stayed straight. She let him go and stepped into the living room. She walked in with such drama, as to give me a chance to look at what she was wearing. It was a low-cut black dress and that's all I needed to see.

Jimmy came into the mansion right behind her and pounded Franklin's hand. He had a strange, dumbfounded look on his face. I didn't know why, but it sure was a strange look. If I didn't know any better, it would be the same pout that some made around people they liked. He couldn't have been smitten with anyone in the room. Could he?

He sat down and so did Franklin. I was, as I said by the windows. To my left was Jimmy, and beside him in the bend of the sofa, was the owner of the house and impromptu marriage counselor, Franklin. Beside him was my 'daughter', and beside her sat her mother and my maybe soon to be ex-wife. Franklin had the good sense to put a coffee table in the space that was between the ends of the sectional, because it would have been way too easy for either of us to get to the other.

"Now, I called you all here so you could settle this shit that has been messing with you're relationship," Franklin said, straightening his posture. "I'll be honest, I don't know if it's healthy for you two to stay together. I don't know that this is even worth the effort of saving. But I can say this, the fact that you both showed up, on time, says that you both think that there's something to the other person. You think that there's something worth fighting for. Now, I ain't saying that this is going to make anything easier, and I ain't saying that you are going to leave here feeling any different that when you came in. I got just one rule. One person talks at a time. I'm gonna let Michael go first."

"Amanda," I said looking into what I could see of her face that was not obscured by sunglasses, "Can you take the sunglasses off please?" I must have been more calm than I thought because Franklin seemed flabbergasted that I wasn't jumping over tables and choking the life out of a certain slut. I continued, "I don't know where went wrong. I don't know what I did or what I said exactly to make you so angry at me but whatever it is."

"Oh," she started, "how quickly you forget. I caught you between a stripper's legs. Don't think I'm just one of your dumb bitches that you can just call up and apologize to. I am not the one to try this shit on."

I swear I felt a vein pop, "And I apologized when it happened! That was 1997, now it's 2013. That can't be the real reason you're mad at me! That can't be it. We have been together since 1986. I don't know why you would hold one fault, one honest mistake that happened ten, eleven years into our relationship against me now. How much sense does that make?" I asked. Maybe in her

"It makes sense Michael, after we pledged that we would be faithful to one another. Remember? We took vows! Till death do us part, Michael Townley."

"So that means that you don't want to end this then?" Franklin asked.

"I didn't then. I meant those vows then. Now it's, 'Till death or divorce do _we_ part.' I just know that Michael has a serious problem and he needs to fix it."

"You know what, you're right. I have a serious problem and you're it."

"Alright, alright, alright, alright," Franklin said in quick procession. "This conversation won't get nowhere with y'all talking like this. Just tell me…" there was a pause. "Tell me about what you dislike most about the other. Amanda first."

"He's a drunk, and he's lazy. He's unappreciative and he's an angry, stubborn old man."

I wasn't really upset about being called such things. When you stick up joints with a partner like Trevor, you learn to develop a thick skin to comparatively light words like 'lazy'.

"And Amanda, I… I. I am sick of your judgmental glares, your endless guilt trips, and your whorish behavior around other men." I couldn't believe that I just said that, but for the first time in a long time, I told the truth to her without walking over eggshells.

"Oh really, I'm a whore Michael? You were the first to break those vows, YOU!"

"No, Amanda, you are quite right and I'm sorry. You are _not_ a _whore_. You're a _slut_. A whore has something on you. A whore is smart enough to get paid for what she does!"

"Michael, don't forget that you were my pimp." She nodded airily as if she was proud of the statement. And it was just that, a statement. She didn't scream it in anger or embarrassment. She just said it, coolly. Tracy and Jimmy, grimacing, both moved toward Franklin. Franklin, just looked blank, or rather as if he was concealing how pissed off he was.

"I was, and I ain't proud of that, but that ended in 1987 before I married you. We both made vows. I followed them, but you didn't."

"Yes, I did." It looked like she was quivering a little.

"You did?" Those words came out more as a sardonic statement than a question. As I said them - those really short words - I reached into my breast pocket. I pulled out a paper that had been folded into fourths. That paper was what I wanted to show her the most. I didn't feel the least bit conflicted about revealing this secret. Fuck, it wasn't my secret. It wasn't my fault.

"Tracey, do you remember that day I asked you to come down to the Pier?" I asked. Now my voice was unnaturally calm.

"Yes," Tracey said, still not having pieced together where that line of questioning could be headed.

"Remember that I swabbed your cheek?"

"Dad, what does this-" Tracey stopped mid-sentence and turned to her mother who had taken her eyes off of me and focused on something -maybe the canopy of one of those imported palm trees- that was outside. Tracey figured it out She looked at her mother and said, "What is he talking about?"

"I don't know." She lied quickly. The words seemed to run into each other. I stifled a grim, ironic chuckle. What was she going to say to get out of this one? Well, I sure as shit wasn't going to give her the time to think of something. Hell no.

I read straight from the letter. "Subject A can _not_ be the father of Subject B. Subject A is of Northwestern European descent and Subject B has genetic markers consistent with peoples of Eastern Europe."

Jimmy spoke in his whiny voice, astonished, "Ma. What were you doing?"

"Fine, Michael. You happy? I cheated and Tracey isn't your daughter. Do you feel better now? You're right, okay, you're right." She spoke as if she was talking about a chore she neglected to do. She started to rise out of her seat quickly. She took her sunglasses off of the table and started to walk to the door. The walk turned into the brisk gait of a businessman. She was trying to escape.

"You are not going to shrug this off!" I was, by now, out of my seat, following her.

"No, I'm not shrugging it off, but I'm done talking to you." She opened the door and closed it behind herself. I reopened I to find that she was already in her car.

I screamed with my fist raised up in the air like a proverbial old man as she started to speed down Whispymound Drive, "We're not done with this by a long shot, bitch." I looked over and saw Franklin's neighbor just up the hill a ways staring at me. "And as for you," I shouted at the nosy man, "Mind your own fucking business."

I walked, more like stomped, back into Franklin's house and slammed to door shut, noticing the still cool air of the place. All I saw was my son standing looking out of the window at the hazy sky and Tracey. Tracey, who in my mind was and will always be my daughter, was just sitting on the sectional with her head buried in Franklin's chest. She was sobbing and convulsing and retching violently. Her blonde hair was disheveled and I could only imagine what the case was with the makeup she was wearing. I didn't know where she got the time to inhale in the part of the episode I witnessed. She was literally crying herself sick, by the looks of it. It made me angry. Did I really need to say anything about her not being my kid?

"Trace-," I started to say. I wanted to say something, but I knew that no word would come out. I wanted so badly to put a hole in a wall, but I was not going to, at least not here. "We'll talk later," I said before marching out of the house and slamming the door again.


	8. Espionage

I knew too well that I couldn't go over to that house, my house. Not now at least. After that argument at Frank's a few hours ago I had to stay cooped up in that damn hotel all day long. I wanted severely to apologize to every innocent person who had to see that display. I wanted now, only to ask Amanda why the hell she didn't tell me or Tracey. How can you be so nonchalant about fucking some other guy and having a kid behind it? And it was that kind of question that was going to keep me in, today and maybe for a few more days. If I went outside, I knew that I was going to do something illegal and some one would end up hurt or worse. I didn't want that and the LSPD really didn't want that. They had their hands full with the cold case of the UD robbery. That, at least, gave me some time to hack into a certain son's computer. I knew that since I wouldn't need a computer I'd do all of the hard work on my phone. It was easy enough for me with the numbered instructions Lester had provided. In fact it was way too easy. I followed each direction to the letter taking special care to cover my tracks.

Lester also showed me how to get an audio/video feed while I retrieved all of the information. Amazingly, that was harder than copying all of the information from a computer. I followed the instructions for hacking in to the computers camera. The image that came across my phone's screen was clear. I had forgotten the specifications of the webcam that I got him last Christmas, but it must have been HD judging by the picture. I didn't give it much of a look as I grabbed my headphones to plug into the phone. There was no need for me to play whatever was going on out loud. I knew that there was no one to listen or snoop. That little paranoid part of me insisted that I made the audio that came through for my ears only. I followed that voice and inserted the headphones into the jack on the bottom by the speakers.

Now I actually took the time, looked at the miniature screen of my device, and found that his room was a dark as ever save the television. Jimmy was sitting in his room as usual, his pale skin being illuminated by the nonsense on the TV. His fire red hair, like my father's, only blended with the shadows that adorned the back of the room. He had the headphones and microphone on, and he was playing Righteous Slaughter. It was a boring display, with the exception of the periodical vulgarity to his competitor.

There was a knock on his door. Unexpectedly, he turned off, or at least paused the game that enraptured him so much. He shouted for whomever to come in. A swaying blonde ponytail came running into the room. The owner of the ponytail, _my_ daughter, plopped on the bed. She had her head in her hands. Jimmy shifted his position in the bed and wrapped his arms around her. They were now both facing me, or rather the camera. He took the headgear off. His hair was in a mess from where it was being displaced.

"She still won't say anything," Tracey managed to get out between sobs.

"I don't know what to say. I knew Mom and Dad did some bad shit back in the day, but this is big." For the first time, in a long time I heard the voice of a mature young man, and not that of a whiny spoilt brat. I was proud of him for consoling his distraught sister so well.

"It's more than big. My whole life is a lie. That was the only man I knew as a father." Her voice sounded like that of a frail woman in grief.

"Michael's still your father. He might have been a shitty influence and have a bad temper, but he's still your dad. He's still _our_ dad." He was trying to reason with her.

"He didn't say it." She was right I didn't say it. I feel like an asshole for not saying it. I hope that she doesn't think that I love her any less. There was no way that the little girl who used sit in my lap for me to read her favorite story and dance that wobbly dance to the theme of her television show that came on at three o'clock on the dot.

"I know, but with pop, you can't fault him. He has this way of not being able to show any affection. I-" She interrupted him.

"But, that's just it. She was always affectionate with me. I was his little princess. I always knew that he loved me. He always hugged me no matter how bad I was. Now I don't know if he could ever hug me again. Even before you got there, I knew there was something different about the way he hugged me. I… I discounted it at first; now I realize that it, his hug I mean, was stiff and distant. His mind was someplace else. Now we know. He was thinking about what that damned piece of paper said. He didn't even want to try and keep his news to himself."

"Tracey, you know I've been thinking about it. For a while, I was thinking that he only did this for the sake of argument. But if that was all it was for, you know, to shut mom up, he would have pulled that out first. I'm not saying that it was the best timing or anything but, I think his world is crumbling too. I mean this must be killing him too. You know, the sleepless nights worrying. Now he knows that he'd been lied to." James' voice was sincere. From somewhere within himself he pulled out his inner 'decent human being'. You know, the one that could relate and have healthy relationships. Well, I ain't the one to talk about anything like that. I created, sustained, and tolerated the way we were. I was a derelict with interacting with normal society and now my son was too. Tracey was the way she was because she overcompensated for the faults I had with people in general. I never, we never -Amanda and me never ever- showed what a family should look like. I snapped out of my thoughts and put my focus back on the conversation.

"She lied," Tracey said, voice still shaky, "She kept this secret from us, from me, from dad, from all of us."

"I am not excusing this at all. But we all have secrets. We all have thing that we don't want people to know. There is no one who ever lived who didn't have something, one thing that they didn't want everybody to know. For some people it's something small and to the world it would be unimportant. For others, it's about identity. It's about who they are and what they are." It was strange; something in his voice had changed.

"Mom will pay for this one day." It was a statement of fact from Trace.

"Here, here."

"I'm not saying that I'm going to do anything. I mean, it's like karma. Doesn't all of that stuff that come back to you." Her voice was lower than usual, but was no longer quivering. Her eyes were red and puffy, but were not producing tears.

"It does." He was patting her back.

"I think I saw a new side of you today little bro."

I logged off of the feed of Jimmy's room, feeling acutely guilty. I shouldn't have spied on them. I shouldn't be spying on Jimmy now. I looked down at the program that was copying all of the information. It had just reached one-hundred percent. I looked at it as a popup window appeared in the app. 'Do you want to save and view data?' it what it asked. I wrestled with the yes or no. I was one tap away from all of the information I could have on my son. I figured that I'd done enough destroying for the day. I glanced at it one more time. I tapped 'No' and watched the app on my phone delete all of the information it copied. If my son was telling the truth about that when he was drunk, he'd tell me in his own time. At least, for the first time in my life, time was NOT of the essence. Nope, it's not.


	9. Revelation

Franklin called us back to his house a couple of days later. By us, I mean just me and Amanda. I still don't know how he was able to get her to come into the same room with me. It almost goes without saying that when I pressed him on how he did it he pled the fifth. 'You don't need to know my methods,' he said jokingly over the phone.

It was the same old drive I had to take from my hotel to his house. I always drove past my house on the way. I knew that there were other quicker ways to his house on the hill, but I couldn't help myself. I didn't dare to go in, not after I brought Jimmy home. I only made things worse. Maybe I was being selfish, but Tracey needed to know what her mother did. Maybe I was being whiny, but my wife was a whore. Sorry, I forgot, a slut.

This time we sat at the two chairs that were at opposite sides of the square coffee table. Franklin sat on the third side, only having to swivel his head forty-five degrees to look either of them in the eyes. That, of course, was only possible if the other person looked back. I hoped that I could. I don't know if she could. You know, look back at him.

"Now, I'mma say this 'cause the both of ya'll need to hear this," Franklin started, testily "I'm sick and tired of the bullshit. I am sick of the yelling. You," he pointed at me, Michael. "I'm am sick of your whining and your need to be pitied. Poor me, poor me! You do big things, you make big moves. You really don't need any help to make any decisions. You have done it and your good at it. You don't need any of this shit we're doing right now. You make choices bigger than this everyday, and now you're afraid, gimme a break. But then I thought about it and it all comes back to you wanting to be the center of attention, you wanting that pity-" Franklin put his accusatory finger down as he realized, he'd be interrupted. I'm not quite sure what my face did, but it felt contorted.

"That's right." Amanda spoke those two words mightily from where she sat. Her posture was straight and leaned forward by a few degrees. The look on her face was that of an executive in a corner office. The look on her face made me sick. It must have done something to the other man in the room too. Franklin gave the dirtiest glare I'd ever seen given someone in life to her, right then. She sat back quickly, gulped with nervousness, and shrunk in her spot. For a second, the word meek entered my head for her appearance.

"You don't talk until I tell you to talk. I'm tired of you too." His eyes remained fiercely interlocked with hers. She dare not look away from him lest he do… something she wouldn't like. I knew he wouldn't touch a hair on her head, but she didn't "You have some serious explaining to do. I have heard things about you from your children that are just fuckin' crazy. I heard about the any men that came in and out of that your room in that trailer. Now we know that you fucked up and got knocked up by someone who wasn't him." He pointed to Michael as the word 'him", but kept firm eye contact with her. "You had the kid, and don't get me wrong, I don't fault you for not having an abortion, but now you had a dirty little secret."

"You're right, I did," she said as she started to sob. She convulsed making her hair leap about clumsily atop her head.

"But," his voice was considerably lower though still stiff and commanding, "There was a problem with this little secret. IT was, IS a living, breathing human being, with feelings and importance, who, right now, this second, is probably doing something insane because of this lie that has been her life. You kept it from her and you kept it from Michael." Her convulsions and sobs subsided.

"I wanna know this Amanda, and you ain't gonna run away." I said, "Who is the father?"

"I don't know who the father is. I just know I cheated and that Tracey's not yours." I knew that look on her face. She was lying.

"Why are you lying? It doesn't matter now who it is, but we, Tracey and me, need to know."

"Alright, it's Brad. I had an affair with Brad." I looked into her eyes again.

"WHY are you STILL lying?"

"Fine, alright you want to know so badly. It was Matt Murkowski."

"You mean the man I chased out of town. The man who was beating you up, fucking you up every time he thought you had a contrary thought. I rescued you from that house. It was more like a shithole, but I got you outta there. How could you go back to that."

"I didn't go back to it." Her head dipped down low and I realized immediately that what she was about to say was a source of pain.

"Then what?" I asked, my voice having softened a bit.

"He raped me. Alright, are you happy to know? He raped me." Her head was now completely in her arms. Franklin got up to get some tissues. I heard him mumble something along the lines of 'that's fucked up."

"I'LL KILL HIM!" I see red. Yes, I saw it then, and I see it now. Why didn't she tell me? They'd've found him in pieces along the Yankton River.

"I already did."

"What?" I wasn't the one to say it. Franklin asked it. He'd only left a few seconds ago and I already forgotten his existence.

"Yes, Franklin I did," Her head had risen from the bend in her arm and perched itself on her neck. She sat straight up and spoke with an even voice, which, to me, sounded like a strange mixture of fondness with acute and all-encompassing pain. It was like a sick story. "It happened when I had been married to my asshole for three years. Matt Murkowski was my high school love. I met him when I was a freshman and he was sophomore. We met at second lunch because his class dropped that day.I remember that short haircut he had. I thought he was the cutest boy I'd ever seen and I asked him on a date." Then there was a bitter laugh that I'd never heard from my wife.

She continued, "We went out for three years and fell in love." I cringed violently at that. "He graduated and then I did. I couldn't afford college and I couldn't find a job, so he suggested that I move in with him and work at his uncle's strip club. The plan was that he'd go to school and I'd work to allow us to climb. So I started stripping to keep up my end of the deal. For several months he did his part too. He enrolled in community college went to his classes while I did what I did in the strip club. Then one day he came to me and told me that college wasn't for him and that he wasn't going to pursue it. I remember I said, 'Then what are we going to do? I have been working my ass off and now you want to quit on me?' He said that it was my job to pay my way in his house."

"You shitting me?" I was at a loss as to what to say.

"I'm not, Michael. Anyway after that, we had a big fight and I moved into this shitty apartment on the other side of town. I started performing at another place and it was uneventful for a few months 'til Matt came running back into my life with his blond charm and good looks. He lured me back to his house and we made some very passionate love." She was blushing.

"I moved in with him again, and I stayed with him for some months, but I didn't go back to his uncle's strip club. I stayed at the Western Corral where I met a young man named Michael Townley. I dated Matt and Mike, but I chose Mike after Matt started to put his hands on me."

"I know the rest of the story. You end up marrying me." I really didn't want to hear any more.

"No, you do not. He hit me and he hit some other girl. She called the cops and he got five years. We dated for two and we were married for three when he did what he did to me. He had just gotten out and he didn't know that I was married."

"That don't make it right." Even I knew I was stating the obvious.

She ignored me, "So when he got out he made it his mission to find me. By the time I had been out on the streets selling myself and stopped. He found me, and when I told him that I was a married woman, I even showed him the ring, he just said that he wanted me. And he took me."

"But—" I was interrupted. I looked over to Franklin whose mouth was hanging open with loathing and astonishment.

"SO, I, after he took advantage of me, found a way to get back at him, through a friend of Michael's."

"Lemme guess," Franklin said with his usual knowing look, "Trevor Phillips."

"But—" I was interrupted again.

"I didn't tell Trevor why I needed him gone. So, Trevor did it for me."

"Did you pay him?" The amount of things I didn't know could be a story.

"Of course not, he said, 'Anything for a lady.' I asked him not to tell you about it and evidently he didn't."

"So why didn't you tell me this? Any of this?" Franklin would later tell me that there were tears in my eyes. I didn't feel them.

"We were just married, and… and I didn't want to ruin anything. So I kept the baby and said it was yours. I never hated Tracey because what happened. It wasn't her fault."

"No, it wasn't, but now what do we do. Now that she knows that she's not my biological daughter."

"I don't know."

We both looked at Franklin. He sighed and shook his head.


	10. Decision

We met in neutral territory. That seemed best. We got as far away from the city as we possibly could, Paleto Bay. We both turned off our cell phones when we got to the place. We'd both decided that some time at a beach with none of the Los Santos influence was needed. We both agreed to eat before we got there. We would sit on the beach and that was all. It was going to be our last meeting as a fucked up couple. We reckoned and agreed that on the one hand, if we separated, we would not be a couple anymore. On the other hand, if we did stay together we would be considerably less fucked up.

I don't know what possessed me to wear a suit and leather shoes, on a hot and sunny day with no clouds, but I did. I got there first, and in the time I waited for her, I took off my black suit jacket and put it back into my car, next to the extra towels that I stole from my hotel, leaving me in the light blue shirt I decided to wear. She appeared a few minutes after I sat down again. She was dressed more appropriately with a big, floppy beige hat, sunglasses, a white sundress, and a pair of flip-flops. It was sexy. Wait… what? I hadn't said that internally or out loud to myself or to her in _months._ We sat on a bench that was about five feet from where the sand began.

"Michael," she started. "Whatever we decide here, I'm okay with it. But I don't want to throw in the towel. I don't think you do either."

"And how would you know what I want?" I asked wanting to know how she could presume anything, anything with me, as detached as we are now.

"You're here, aren't you?" She asked, whining a little.

"I think so. Sometimes I think that it's just a bad dream." Then I pinch myself and realize that I'm wide awake.

"I think it's a dream sometimes too, and then I pinch myself and realize that I'm wide awake," she said. What the fuck? Was she in my head? She started speaking again, "I've turned into an escapist, always dreaming of the good times way back when. You know when music was on cassette, when TV went off at night." She was making me think back to the days when we delighted in each other's company.

"I remember those days," I reminisced, "If, you'd told me back then that I could carry a telephone in my pocket that played music and that sent messages of text, I wouldn't have believed you." I laughed to myself, knowing that to be true. That seemed to be one of the things that changed the most, the telephone.

"Remember my hair. I had that terrible perm." I loved her hair back then. I used to give her the worst grief about it, but I loved it.

"And, so did I."

"No, that wasn't a perm. That was Chernobyl on top of your head." I laughed. It was a mess. I burnt half of the instant pictures, with that terrible hairstyle.

"But then the kids came along, and we both made bad choices."

"Look, Amanda, I'm sorry."

"Wha—"

"I didn't know about what that man did to you. I would have killed him and they would've found him in pieces all over the state. I wouldn't have made you have the kid either, though I know that it was your choice." Even I was aware of how grim my voice was.

"I… it wasn't your fault, it wasn't my fault, and I knee then that it wasn't the baby's fault. I lost a lot when that man did what he did to me. I lost my sense of security. I lost my sense of self. In a way I lost you too. I didn't want to lose the baby too. So, every night I prayed that the baby would come out and that you'd have the 'click' that fathers have with their children, especially their daughters. You did have that sappy look on your face when you held her for the first time and I was glad. I was really glad."

"I did connect with her. She was my little girl. She's still my little girl no matter how old she gets. We definitely have to talk to her."

"I already did, and she was never mad at you Michael. She's not angry with me anymore. She's just lost," Amanda said.

"They're both lost, but we were too. I rather have them lost in a way we can help them than the way we were. They're in their twenties. Most other kids their age are in college doing the stupid stuff." I looked at her as I spoke and she moved the sunglasses from her eyes and looked me in the eyes. I don't remember the last time she did that.

"But I want them to be able to do something with their lives and get the hell out of my house." She said.

We both laughed heartily. A seagull that was flying around above our heads seemed to cackle along with us. We both looked up at it, and at the partly cloudy sky it was flying in, then down at the waves crashing on the beach, and then at each other and started laughing at even harder. When was the last time we laughed like this? When did I get so soft? I mean I wasn't upset or nothing, but I was enjoying my wife for the first time in years. When did everything get so fluffy between us, and, if it ever was, when did it change? Why did I permit it to change?

"How are we going to motivate them, really?" The light tone was gone from her voice. She was serious, but not devoid of hope and enthusiasm.

"The more we push now, the further we'll drive 'em away. When they're tired of their prodigal living, they'll come back around."

"But how about Jim," she started a question. "He's drinking to excess and he'll end up needing his stomach pumped. Again… He'll kill himself, by the time he's twenty-five."

"I think that we can all intervene if we need to."

"We need to."

There, we fell into an awkward silence. I hated it. There should be no such thing as an awkward silence between us, not after all of these years. Maybe it was an awkward silence, but I knew that as much as the two of us could talk, we were both holding back. I don't know if I'd have felt any better with a 'comfortable' silence, but I knew one of us would say something. Any minute now. Yup… any minute now.

She spoke. "Do you remember when we used to bring the kids here?"

"We did, didn't we?" I'd forgotten long ago about our happy family days before the kids became… terrible.

"Yup… every 4th of July we'd come up here and watch the fireworks here. We'd hit the road at about noon and be here by three-thirty. The kids and I would stay on the beach while you would get us a room in that hotel. You know the one that used to be where that bank is now." She pointed behind us in that general direction.

"Now I remember. It was called the Come Inn. I would always make sure to get the room that on the top floor that faced north. It had the view of the beach and we would go out on the terrace."

"I remember the first year we got them a room to themselves and we were alone. I remember the way we looked at each other." She said, "I still remember that look on your face."

"I shut the blinds, because we didn't need any light for what we were about to do."

"That was a good night." She smiled at me.

"We SLEPT for the first time in years that night. We slept and slept and slept and no one could stop us."

She blinked twice really hard, as if getting back to the realities of the present, "Why did we ever stop going?"

I didn't remember, so I didn't answer. It made me realize that we changed. Or more correctly, this town changed us. We both took up this strange vanity that ran from the taps in this town. We stopped caring about each other and started caring only about ourselves. For me, that meant that I just created my own little reality in the back yard. Me and my bottle of whiskey. I guess for her it meant 'centering herself' and aligning with all off those yogi types. We both lost ourselves and now we were griping about how our children had no sense of direction. It's our fault, but I think we did better than our parents. I hope that they do better than us.

I heard her voice again, "I'm sorry for the cheating."

"I—" She interrupted me.

"No, I have to say this. I know this is going to sound childish and it is childish. I've come to learn that men and women cheat for different reasons. Men and women are both in it for some sort of satisfaction. Sometimes it's to be vindictive too. I just know that women cheat more for the emotional reasons. I did it because I wanted attention. You were always out making a living. Lord knows what you did, but you always made a living for us. I knew that you loved me and appreciated me, but you were never around to say it. So, I went seeking that validation from other men. By the time we got to when you were always around, it was habit, a sick habit. Now I realize that they would say anything to get what they wanted. They did and I fell for it easier and easier every time." She was looking down at the sand.

"I… we have both done our share of… we've both had our slip-ups and we're even now. Clean slate." I lifted her chin and wiped a tear from her face.

"So, it's gone, just like that?" She seemed almost a little frightened by the prospect.

"Just like that. Clean slate. Why don't we make a completely new life?"

"What?" Her voice lightened.

"I mean it. New house. Let's get out of the city too. We could find a house up in the hills by Franklin or get a place in Chumash. Let's start a new life in a new place."

"Again?" It wasn't a question full of derision or loathing. She was simply curious.

"Yes, money isn't the problem."

"It is—"

"Anyplace you want to move, we can go." I was serious. Fuck that town and all the people in it.

"How about right here, Paleto Bay." I raised my arm and moved it as if I was showing her something new and exciting, like a new car on the showroom floor.

"How about on the slope of Mount Chiliad, facing the ocean?" She asked, as she turned her head and looked at the large black silhouette of the mountain.

"Just say the word and we can do it." She didn't know about the amount of money I made from the UD and from those investments that Lester clued Franklin and thus me into.

"Michael," I don't remember the last time she said my name in such a loving way, "I think I might be falling in love with you again."

That made me chuckle a little. "Just sitting here on a bench by the ocean makes you fall in love with me. I wish I knew from the beginning that it was so simple."

"And that's how we'll be from now on simple." She said, "I promise that I'll try not to be so messy."

"Me too. That's why I want to get out off that hell on earth they call Los Santos and look out of my window and not see that brown smog."

"Why don't we give the kids the house we live in now?" She asked.

I, jokingly, laughing "How much money do you think I have?"

She cracked a cynical, but lighthearted smile and moved that smile about an inch from my ear, "About as much gold as the Union Depository can hold." She whispered, with the innocence of a schoolgirl.

"I don't know what you're talking about." I think the last vestiges of my Yankton accent came through.

Her mouth didn't move, but her tone became breathy. I felt her exhalations on my cheek.. "I'm sure you don't, but when I was watching that on the news," she started rubbing, caressing, my sleeves, "I recognized the big, strong arms of one of those, those _perps_." She put an emphasis, almost a sigh, on that last word. It made my cock twitch a little.

"Well, I have a family to provide for," I said, trying my best to keep my cool. It wasn't working in the slightest.

"Well, you are a _good_ provider. There are some things about you that are _more_ than sufficient." She, of course, wasn't wrong, but I don't remember the last time she said anything so forward, so pert to me.

"Oh, am—" I was mid-question, when I felt something strange. I felt a drop of water on my forehead. I looked up and saw that the cloudless sky that greeted me when we arrived turned into a menacing gray that produced downpours. I perceived another drop, this time on my hand. Then another drop… and another. And within ten seconds it was raining so hard that I could scarcely see my hand in from of my face.

The next couple of moments were a wet blur. I know that I must have grabbed Amanda. We must have made a mad dash to my car. Now she was sopping wet. There was water dripping from her nose, and her hat had lost its floppiness and clung to the sides of her head. I must have told her to take that sundress off. She probably wriggled it off awkwardly. She was nearly naked in my car and my body had its physiological response even through the layers of wet clothing. I took as many layers of clothes as I could. Stripping my clothes, ironically, did away with my boner. SHIT.

Now we were both freezing and dripping and half naked. We looked at each other and laughed together.

"I hope you remembered to put the cover and your convertible," I said.

"I hope so, too," she replied. We smiled at each other and we started cracking up.

"You wanna go home?" I asked.

"Yes, _let's_ go to our home. Our broken, yelling, mess of a home, but home."

"Okay, then." That was my simple response. I didn't need to say anything else.

There was nothing more to say. I finally made a decision. I made a choice. It would have been foolish of me to rush to an option, but I'm sure I caused headaches for Franklin, Trevor, Lester, Jimmy, and Tracey. I, finally, decided to stay with my Amanda. For the first time in years I think that she's mine again. It took some thinking and crying and cursing, but I made a decision. I don't regret it, as I look to my right and watch her start to drift off into a nap with only a towel as her source of comfort and a cute grin on her face. I smiled and focused on the road ahead of me. I thought, 'This ain't like some job I had to put together. It was a question of if I loved her and it was all too spooky when I couldn't answer. Now I know the answer is yes, a resounding yes. I'm gonna try my best to have a happier wife for a happier life. I think that I deserve it.'

I do.

* * *

Well, that's all. Thanks to all of those who followed and reviewed. More stories are in the works, so keep an eye out.

-Wherenwhy


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